When Nice-ness Becomes a Weapon
Oct. 20th, 2002 01:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqA pet peeve of mine is super-nice people. Not plain old nice people, the sort who give you a smile or say hello, or the store clerk who does that little bit extra. No, the nice people I hate are the ones who are in you face about it. The do-you-see-how-nice-I-am types - where nice behavior goes off the deep end into the land of passive-aggressiveness. A few examples of the sort:
People who hold the door open for you when your twenty meters away, and you feel obligated to jog up to meet them.
Drivers who stop for jaywalkers, blocking legitimate traffic.
People whose nice-ness forces you to take an active interest in them - to acknowledge how nice their being. It's easy for them because we've been trained from day one to respond in a positive way to this sort of behavior - and 99 percent of the time it really is nice and we really should respond positively.
This is one of those sliding scales, where good behavior turns bad through repetition or intensity. Eating a candy bar is good, so eating twenty of them must be twenty times better right?
Good: Holding the door open for someone
Not-so-good: Holding the door when their obviously far enough that they have to run in an effort to not be rude.
Madness-inducing: As above and saying "Don't worry, I've got the door for you."
Here at Ggothic towers, the resident I'm-nice-why-don't-you-love-me type is someone the Bruce called The Mole Man. He looks like a mole actually, which is hardly a problem - I of all people have no business commenting on other people's appearance. No, the mole man is one of those people who insists on having a conversation. He'll get on the elevator and start up a conversation and is utterly incapable of noticing those little social cues that prevent widespread violence.
The Bruce made it into a game, he would flat out not respond to the guy. Apparently mole man would be quivering with nervous energy waiting for Bruce to respond to a query, so that he could jump into his next question - but it would never come.
Me? I decided that this guy was not worthy of any normal consideration the day of the elevator incident.
I got on the elevator on the ground floor of the building and pressed the "20" button. There was no one else on board.
The elevator stops on the second floor (which is not unusual because the parking garage extends from the basement to the second floor). The mole man gets on and presses the basement button (another pet peeve: people who press both the "request up" and "request down" button of an elevator in a misguided attempt to make the elevator come faster - all this accomplishes is making the entire elevator system a little bit slower for everyone without any gain for the moron).
I didn't actually want to write about the mole man. My target was the newest nice guy who moved into the building recently.
I walked into the vestibule and was pulling out my keys when I heard the guy coming up behind me say "Oh, you don't need to get that - I have my keys ready".
Now I was about 2 seconds from having my keys ready, but I stood aside to let him open the door - I figure, he's probably in a hurry (foolish really, theirs no reason to hurry at Ggothic towers because the elevators will never cooperate).
He opens the door and we walk in. We both go to the side hallway to get our mail. As fate would have it, he has to stand in front of my mailbox to open his. Not a problem, my mind was a million miles away anyway. But he doesn't get his mail. Instead, he stands up, moves aside and says "Oh, you can go before me".
At this point I realized what sort of person I was dealing with, and I started to get annoyed. In my mind I did a quick calculation: If he had simply grabbed his mail, it would have taken me less time to grab my mail then the situation we now found ourselves in. Essentially, he was wasting his own time so that he could waste more of my time, all in a misguided attempt to be in-your-face-nice to me.
It's hard to explain why this bothers me so much. I like it when people are nice to me, who wouldn't? It's great when someone holds a door for me, or says hi, or does any of the thousands of little pleasantries that makes society run smoothly. I do occasional chat with other tenants.
I think what bothers me is the attitude behind it - you can sense genuine friendliness and it has a different flavors from smarmi-ness. A cartoon I read once (I think it was Non-sequitur) had this joke:
I think I'll choose what's behind door number two Monty. It's not my job to pretend rude behavior is something else.
People who hold the door open for you when your twenty meters away, and you feel obligated to jog up to meet them.
Drivers who stop for jaywalkers, blocking legitimate traffic.
People whose nice-ness forces you to take an active interest in them - to acknowledge how nice their being. It's easy for them because we've been trained from day one to respond in a positive way to this sort of behavior - and 99 percent of the time it really is nice and we really should respond positively.
This is one of those sliding scales, where good behavior turns bad through repetition or intensity. Eating a candy bar is good, so eating twenty of them must be twenty times better right?
Good: Holding the door open for someone
Not-so-good: Holding the door when their obviously far enough that they have to run in an effort to not be rude.
Madness-inducing: As above and saying "Don't worry, I've got the door for you."
Here at Ggothic towers, the resident I'm-nice-why-don't-you-love-me type is someone the Bruce called The Mole Man. He looks like a mole actually, which is hardly a problem - I of all people have no business commenting on other people's appearance. No, the mole man is one of those people who insists on having a conversation. He'll get on the elevator and start up a conversation and is utterly incapable of noticing those little social cues that prevent widespread violence.
"Hello."... Etc. It drives me up the wall because to say "Don't bother me" or "I don't want to talk to you" makes me seem like the bad guy. The simple act of wanting to be left alone becomes an act of rudeness, when it is actually the other person's actions that are driving the situation.
"Hi."
"How are you doing?"
"Fine."
"So what do you think of that rain?"
The Bruce made it into a game, he would flat out not respond to the guy. Apparently mole man would be quivering with nervous energy waiting for Bruce to respond to a query, so that he could jump into his next question - but it would never come.
Me? I decided that this guy was not worthy of any normal consideration the day of the elevator incident.
I got on the elevator on the ground floor of the building and pressed the "20" button. There was no one else on board.
The elevator stops on the second floor (which is not unusual because the parking garage extends from the basement to the second floor). The mole man gets on and presses the basement button (another pet peeve: people who press both the "request up" and "request down" button of an elevator in a misguided attempt to make the elevator come faster - all this accomplishes is making the entire elevator system a little bit slower for everyone without any gain for the moron).
"This elevator is going up, not down"It took all my self control to keep from stopping the elevator and getting off at the very next stop. Sadly, kicking mole man off the elevator was not an option - annoying as he is, assault is still illegal.
"Oh, that's OK, I'll go up to twenty with you. So how's it going?"
I didn't actually want to write about the mole man. My target was the newest nice guy who moved into the building recently.
I walked into the vestibule and was pulling out my keys when I heard the guy coming up behind me say "Oh, you don't need to get that - I have my keys ready".
Now I was about 2 seconds from having my keys ready, but I stood aside to let him open the door - I figure, he's probably in a hurry (foolish really, theirs no reason to hurry at Ggothic towers because the elevators will never cooperate).
He opens the door and we walk in. We both go to the side hallway to get our mail. As fate would have it, he has to stand in front of my mailbox to open his. Not a problem, my mind was a million miles away anyway. But he doesn't get his mail. Instead, he stands up, moves aside and says "Oh, you can go before me".
At this point I realized what sort of person I was dealing with, and I started to get annoyed. In my mind I did a quick calculation: If he had simply grabbed his mail, it would have taken me less time to grab my mail then the situation we now found ourselves in. Essentially, he was wasting his own time so that he could waste more of my time, all in a misguided attempt to be in-your-face-nice to me.
"Just get your damn mail" I said, glaring at him.And he did - from mailbox 2007. Ugh, not only was he in the same building, he was literally two doors down from me (2008 is strangely not next to 2007 in Ggothic towers).
It's hard to explain why this bothers me so much. I like it when people are nice to me, who wouldn't? It's great when someone holds a door for me, or says hi, or does any of the thousands of little pleasantries that makes society run smoothly. I do occasional chat with other tenants.
I think what bothers me is the attitude behind it - you can sense genuine friendliness and it has a different flavors from smarmi-ness. A cartoon I read once (I think it was Non-sequitur) had this joke:
New York vs. Los AngelesMichael had a long rant on passive aggressiveness a few months ago and I think this is a prime example of it. Essentially, I have two choices: I can respond in the socially correct manner, which justifies themselves and reinforces the behavior; or I can respond rudely, and they can again justify themselves by thinking "I'm just trying to be friendly and this guy bit my head off - what an asshole".
Panel 1: A stereotypical New York cabbie yells "Fuck you", but his thought balloon says "Have a nice day".
Panel 2: A stereotypical Los Angeles movie producer says "Have a nice day", but his thought balloon says "Fuck you".
I think I'll choose what's behind door number two Monty. It's not my job to pretend rude behavior is something else.
